This volume contains the papers presented at NICFD 2016: 1st International Seminar on Non-Ideal Compressible-Fluid Dynamics for Propulsion & Power held on the 19th and 20th of October, 2016, at Villa Monastero, Varenna, Italy. The conference website is nicfd2016.polimi.it.

NICFD 2016 promoted the exchange of scientific knowledge and fostered the interaction among researchers and professionals in the field of non-ideal compressible-fluid dynamics, with special emphasis on topics related to propulsion and power applications. The conference themes range from theoretical foundations to advanced numerical and experimental practices and applied technologies. Key themes are: experiments; fundamentals; numerical methods; optimization and UQ; critical and supercritical flows; turbulence and mixing; multi-component fluid flows; applications in ORC power systems; applications in supercritical CO2 power systems; steam turbines; cryogenic flows; condensing flows in nozzles; cavitating flows; super/trans-critical fluids in space propulsion.

The proceedings gather 27 papers reporting on cutting-edge research activities in NICFD for propulsion and power. The review paper by Prof. Alfred Kluwick opens the collection and provides the perspective on past discoveries, the context of present activities and the roadmap of future challenges in this new, exciting scientific field.

We would like to thank all the participants to NICFD 2016 and the members of the Scientific Committee, for providing guidance during the organisation of the conference and for managing the revision of the papers. We thank all reviewers for their invaluable help to attain the high scientific quality of the contributions collected here.

The conference was supported in part by the European Research Council under ERC Consolidator Grant N.617603, NSHOCK Project (crealab.polimi.it)